


Blue Scarf and Blind Eyes

by DoctorCastielHolmes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Harry Potter - Freeform, Hogwarts, Original Character(s), Ravenclaw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-16 19:26:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5837968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorCastielHolmes/pseuds/DoctorCastielHolmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maisie Wells never thought that she was special. She was different because she was blind, but that wasn't something that she was proud of, and her parents never failed to let her know how much of a burden she was to the family. Or at least that was until she received a letter from a mysterious school called Hogwarts and her entire life changed. Because she was different, but in a good way. She was different because she was a witch, and now Maisie is attending Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, where she's finding out just how special she actually is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The 89

Maisie Wells had always known that she was different. Her parents always made sure that she knew it – made sure that she knew that she was different (odd…) – and that she was a disappointment because she wasn’t normal. Even when she tried so hard to please them – get top grades, although she didn’t have much of a choice – she was always a burden to them. A burden to them because of something that she couldn’t control. A burden to them because she was blind. And it wasn’t like that was the only way she was different – perhaps not even the most noticeable reason – but she wouldn’t realize that until she turned eleven.

Maisie had been born completely blind. Her parents didn’t know what it was – it didn’t run in the family – and the doctors were no help. “It’s… kind of like cataracts…?” was the closest thing they had gotten to a diagnosis, which, of course, outraged Maisie’s parents. Because all they wanted more than anything in the world was a normal daughter. A normal daughter who they could be proud of. Not Maisie.

And she knew this, too. They would tell her. They would tell her that she was a burden and that they wished that she had just been born normally as if she had chosen to be blind and that she was just a mess up. They pushed her to make good grades – they thought that if nothing else they could at least be somewhat proud of the fact that she had good grades – although they were never satisfied with those. Straight A’s? They needed to be higher A’s. And, whenever she let them down or did anything wrong or upsetting they let her know how angry they were. Usually it was just screaming, although it wasn’t unusual for her to arrive at school with a black eye or busted lip (and even a broken arm once).

Maisie never blamed her parents, of course. In fact, she understood. She understood why they were always angry at her. It was because she had been conditioned to agree with them. She agreed that she was different and that she deserved to be punished for it. Because her parents… they just wanted what was best for her, and it was her fault that she couldn’t satisfy them. It was her fault that she didn’t make straight 100’s, and she really was a burden. Her parents had the right to be angry at her.

They were rich, and their house let that be known to even complete strangers. In fact, it wasn’t even really a house; it was more like a mansion. There was four stories, with two large staircases in the house on either side leading up. The third and fourth floor had giant balconies, and their massive backyard had an Olympic-sized swimming pool, although Maisie wasn’t allowed to swim in it (there was a lot that Maisie wasn’t allowed to do). Her bedroom, although one of the smallest bedrooms in the house, was still double the size of a normal bedroom. There wasn’t a lot in it – only a bed, a desk, and a dresser, really (just like how she wasn’t allowed to do much, her parents didn’t like her having much either) – and, if Maisie were to be honest, she absolutely hated it. It was… lonely. It was on the fourth floor, which was exactly four floors away from her parent’s bedroom (and Maisie wasn’t stupid. She knew that it was because her parents didn’t want to deal with her). And the fact that it was so massive with so little in it made it feel so cold. Made her feel alone.

She wasn’t thinking too much about it on this particular day, though. No, she didn’t think about it too often. She always had more… urgent matters on her mind. Like grades, which was what she happened to be thinking about as she pushed the massive front door open, folding up her white cane as she stepped onto the smooth floor.

“Maisie…!” her mother greeted. At least Catherine Wells always tried to sound warm when she greeted her daughter. That was far more than Joseph Wells ever did. “How was your day?” Even being blind, Maisie knew that, despite her mother trying to make it sound as if she was smiling, she had a look of disdain on her face. Neither of her parents really enjoyed talking to Maisie.

“It was… fine…” Maisie mumbled, head bowed as she lied. School was never fine. She hated it. She hated the stress of it and the bullying and the fact that she had no friends.

“Maisie, I think what your mother meant to ask was: how are your grades?” Even people who only met Joseph Wells once would be able to recognize his voice. It was loud and rough sounding, and there was always a hint of anger there, even when he was happy, although it was far more noticeable when he was talking to or about Maisie. And, with Maisie, his first words to her when she got home from school were always about her grades. Nothing else. No greeting. Just him asking whether or not she was making something that they could be happy about. She had learned pretty early on not to lie – it always made everything worse when she told him that she made an A only to have him later find out that she actually made an 89.

“They’re… okay…” She just wanted to get out of the conversation as soon as possible. If she got out of it – if she didn’t give them time to get actual answers out of her – she would be fine.

 “What do you mean ‘okay?’”

She took a deep breath. Even with the question, if she went about it smartly there was still the possibility that she could get away without having them be too mad at her. “I made a 96 on my history test.”

It was almost as if she could hear the red rushing to his face as Maisie's father began screaming at her. “A 96!? What did we tell you? Anything below a 97 on that and you’re not having dinner. You’re going straight up to your room and staying up there all night, do you understand?” Joseph’s normal anger was amplified, although Maisie was glad to get off with such an easy punishment. Although… “And on your English test? Maisie, I swear to God, if you tell me that you made anything below a 97 –”

 She couldn’t breathe. Her dad thought that the 96 was bad. She had completely failed the English test. Trembling slightly, the small girl was tightly gripping her shirt. “I—I—The test wasn’t fair! He didn’t give me enough time!”

“TELL ME WHAT YOU MADE ON IT, YOUNG LADY!”

“An 89,” came a tiny squeak.

“AN 89!? DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS MEANS!? GET UP TO YOUR ROOM – RIGHT NOW! AND NO DINNER TONIGHT OR TOMORROW. YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO THIS FAMILY!”

And, without another word, Maisie was racing up the stairs, hand lightly tracing the wall once she was on the fourth floor until she found her room, quickly locking the door once she was up there.


	2. A Letter

Maisie never fought with her parents. If they told her to do something she usually immediately did it, even if she didn’t want to. Her parents knew best, after all, and she also preferred to avoid being punished even more so by trying to argue about her punishment. If she could avoid more punishment she most definitely would.

So, when her parents told her that she was to stay in her room and not have dinner that was what she did. Flopping down onto the bed after locking the door, Maisie rolled up in her covers, frowning but agreeing that she did deserve this. She was the one who had failed her test even after her parents warned her what would happen if she did. It was her fault that she hadn’t heeded their warnings.

It wasn’t like this was the first time she had gone without dinner. In fact it wasn’t even that odd of an occurrence. She had gone for a whole week one time not eating dinner, and only lasting on the small lunch that her school provided. At least it was better than public school food. Her parents would never send her to filthy public school. No, they sent her to one of the best private schools in all of London, much to both Maisie and her teachers’ despair. The school wasn’t made for her – wasn’t prepared for a blind student – and yet the school couldn’t turn her down (most likely because of the large donations that her father made).

She wasn’t that hungry anyways. Sitting up, Maisie began taking her brunette hair down from the two tight braids that she always had it up in. Despite her parents seeming to think that she couldn’t do much – that she was almost completely useless – and Maisie secretly worrying that they were right, there was one thing that she could most definitely do: braid. It might seem odd because it was such a weird and small thing to be proud of, but Maisie prided herself on the fact that she could braid her and others’ hair so well. She loved it; it made her feel normal. Because a lot of people assumed that she wouldn’t be able to do it – not when she was so different – so the fact that she could made her feel a little more like everybody else.

Gently placing the hair ties on the bedside table as not to lose them, Maisie then turned to where she had shrugged off her backpack onto the bed. Finding the zipper and quickly opening the bag, she began pulling things out, attempting to find her English book (even though the school was reluctant to as it meant spending extra money, they had all the books translated into a braille version for Maisie). She was punished for failing her English test after all – she might as well use this time to study.

The test had been on adverbs, and although English was usually Maisie’s best subject, she just couldn’t seem to understand them. So naturally the page she turned to was the one that they had been going back to all week (which had been bookmarked), and she had her hands on the page about to begin reading when she suddenly yanked away from it, scared.

A sound. She couldn’t really tell what it was (she only thought that it vaguely resembled the sound of something crashing against something), but it had clearly come from near the window. So, hesitating, Maisie set the book aside on the bed as she turned towards where the window was across the room, edging near the end of her bed as she waited to see if there would be another sound. Standing up as there wasn’t, Maisie then began creeping towards the window, looking almost as if she was expecting there to be an explosion if she got too near the window. But slowly her confidence grew, and as she got to the window she slowly moved her hand over it, trying to see if there was any cracks. Much to her surprise, though, there wasn’t. Maybe it had all been her imagination, because the only thing that she could hear now was the hoot of an owl that, by the way the hooting traveled, seemed to be flying to the front of the house.

So, shrugging it off, she sighed and left the window, returning to where she knew her bed to be and picking back up the workbook that had been put aside, immediately beginning to read it. She just needed to know what she had done wrong on the test – she needed to understand how to use and identify adverbs.

However, her study session was interrupted once again, although this time not by something hitting her window. No, her father screaming her name so loudly that she could hear it all the way from the fourth floor was much more terrifying than any mysterious sound.

She gulped; what had she done? He was clearly upset, but Maisie had no idea why he would be. She couldn’t remember doing anything whatsoever that would upset him now, and she had been very quiet when going to the window and back as not to disturb her parents. But she knew as he hollered her name once more that she had no choice but to go see what he needed, and, trembling, she closed the book and set it on the bed again, then slowly moving off of her bed and tiptoeing towards the door. It was scary to have him be mad when she knew what he was mad about, but to not know was somehow even more so.

Tracing her hand on the wall as she exited into the hall, Maisie could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she grabbed the rail, taking slow, stalling steps as she went down the stairs. She wished that the stairs would just go on forever – that she would never reach the bottom floor – though her wish never came into being, as, after a minute of going down the stairs as slowly as she could, Maisie reached the first floor.

And she was immediately met with screaming. Screaming from her dad, of course – her mom was never much of a yeller; she just usually made snide remarks – and for a moment she couldn’t even understand what he was saying.

“What in the world is this!?” he yelled, eyes bulging, and Maisie could hear what sounded like the flapping of paper being shook violently.

“What is… what?” she asked quietly. Sometimes her parents seemed to forget that she couldn’t see, although most of the time they wouldn’t let her forget it.

“Oh, don’t be a smartass. You know what it is!” he huffed, the flapping of paper stopping before being replaced by the sound of it being roughly unfolded, then reading from it, “‘Dear Miss Wells, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.’ What the hell does that even mean?”

The look of confusion on Maisie’s face hardly matched the confusion that she actually felt. This was all very random, and it took her a few seconds to even really process what he had said. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. What even was that? And it was clear that there was more to the letter – that her father hadn’t read it all – but as she was already confused at the first line, it probably wouldn’t make her any less confused if he had carried on.

“Is this your idea of a joke?” he asked, once again angrily waving the paper, then asking the very same question that Maisie had been thinking of, “What is ‘Hogwarts?’ What are you trying to accomplish with this? It just makes you look mad. Witchcraft and Wizardry… Why did you even write this?”

She knew not to argue back. It would land her in even more trouble. She never argued back.

But…

“I didn’t write it!” Okay, she nearly never argued back, but this time she actually didn’t do anything to deserve being in trouble. “I can’t even write!” She could write in braille, but her parents had never bothered to learn how to read that.

“You got one of your friends to write it for you then,” came her mother’s reply, and she was smirking as she crossed her arms, “I don’t know why you would get them to write it for you, but that’s clearly what happened here.”

“But I don’t have –” She paused. It was no use. Even if she told her parents that she didn’t have any friends – and she had thought that they already knew – they would come up with some other way that she had done this. She had a feeling that they would blame her for this no matter what.

“Maisie…” Her father’s voice was now a low growl, and by then Maisie’s whole body was trembling as she heard him walking toward her, the crunching of the paper letting her know that he had balled it up before throwing it aside. And all of a sudden she was unexpectedly grabbed by the collar of her shirt, pulled toward him and forced to stand on her toes, his face barely a few inches from her own, causing Maisie to feel his hot angry breaths as he just stared at her for a moment. There was a sort of fire in his eyes that, had she been able to see it, would most likely have had her fleeing from him. “Tell me… why… you… did… this…” he whispered, although it came out as what sounded like a dare. As if he was daring her to tell him. Or as if he was daring her to lie.

Perhaps she should have lied then. Perhaps lying would have saved her this once. Because it was clear that the answer that she gave wasn’t the one that he wanted to hear.

“I didn’t,” she squeaked, close to tears.

And then came a loud clapping sound, and for a moment Maisie didn’t realize what had happened. But suddenly all at once she felt it burning where he had slapped her across the face, although she barely had time to grab it in an attempt to alleviate the pain before she was pushed backwards into the wall near the staircase.

“GO – TO – YOUR – ROOM!” he screamed, getting even angrier when Maisie began to quietly sob, “YOU’RE NOT EATING UNTIL YOU TELL US WHY YOU DID THIS.” Two days of not eating dinner she could handle, but this was an indefinite amount of time, and Maisie knew that he meant it, too. And he probably wasn’t just talking about dinner. They did have control over her lunch account at school, after all, and they were very mad – more so than she could ever remember them being in quite a while. To others it might have seemed like she was over exaggerating when she thought that her parents might cut off her lunch account, but she knew that it really was something that they would do.

She was immediately scrambling to her feet, hot tears rolling down her cheeks as she tightly held the side of her face. Not able to find the stairs for a moment in her panic, Maisie tripped over the first step (causing her to leave a small gash in her leg as the stairs were made of marble and therefore their edges were very sharp) before standing back up again and racing up them as quickly as her short legs would take her.

Back exactly where she had started before her father had called her – lying on her bed with the door locked – Maisie was sobbing into her pillow for what felt like hours. By then she had completely forgotten about the crashing against her window, and her mind was completely consumed in thinking about what had happened. Who had done this? Who had gotten her in trouble for something that she hadn’t even done?

The burning sensation on her cheek eventually faded, although the pain in her leg was constant, and she could feel the stickiness of blood seeping onto her hand every time she went to try and make the pain stop by holding her hand against it. She only laid down to sleep when the stickiness turned to dry blood, and she was still sobbing silently as she shut her eyes, the coppery scent of blood slightly overwhelming.


	3. At School

The next day was no better. The first thing that Maisie would have thought about as she woke up would have been the letter that her parents were mad at her about, but the pain coming from her leg took priority when, as soon as she woke up, she could feel how incredibly sore it was. Sitting up in her bed and rubbing it a bit, she cringed as she moved out from under the covers and stood up, nearly falling back into her bed as pain jolted throughout her entire leg. Biting down on her lip, though, she managed to stay standing, then fumbling to turn off the alarm clock that she had, for a moment, forgotten was yelling “Six a.m.! Six a.m.!”

It couldn’t be too bad, she figured. Maybe one of the teachers would notice it and offer to bring her to the school’s nurse to get it bandaged, and she could certainly wait until then as there was no way that she would bring it up to her parents. In fact, the best thing that she could do would be to not talk to them whatsoever. If she could manage that – manage to get all the way to school with them without talking to her parents once – she would be fine.

That was the plan that was going through her head as she lifted her backpack onto the bed, frowning and attempting yet again to ignore how sore her leg felt. She had gotten used to the scent of blood by then, although she knew that the blood had to be visible on her. So, after gathering everything that she would need for school and stuffing it inside the bag (which was incredibly heavy as, not only did the school push its students and give them far more work and books than normal schools did, but as her books were all translated to braille they were much heavier than they would be normally), she left the room and turned right, going to the bathroom at the end of the hall.

The shower was quick, and was less so to actually get clean and more so just to get the blood off of her. Once she was satisfied that there couldn’t be any blood left for others to see (and lucky that she couldn’t see the blood that had mixed with the water beneath her feet, turning it red, as she, like most others, would have freaked out), Maisie wrapped a towel around her, returning to her bedroom where she hastily got dressed (her closet was _very_ organized and her clothes, including her school uniform, were all labeled in braille), then taking a few minutes to do her hair into two braids.

And by that point she was feeling nervous again, and she was hesitant as she grabbed her backpack off the bed, letting out a small grunt as she put it on and it almost pulled her back down onto the bed.

She was limping slightly as she left her bedroom, although trying as much as she could to walk as normally as possible. She knew that the cut would still be visible – she could certainly still feel it – but if she didn’t bring any extra attention to it she hoped neither her parents nor peers would bring it up. The only person she wanted to notice it was a teacher, and that was only so she could get it bandaged.

After getting down the stairs (which, unlike a few hours before, she wished would come to an end quickly as each step down caused what felt like fire to go up her leg, leaving her cringing), she waited by the door, concentrating on just turning her folded white cane over in her hands a few times as she listened to her father stomping over with a few loud angry huffs.

Both Maisie and her parents hated the fact that her father was the one who had to bring her to school (Maisie because he was always in a grumpy mood when he brought her, although today especially so, and her parents because her father didn’t want to have to wake up to bring her) and they had tried to arrange for a driver to bring her each morning, but the school had quickly banned them from doing so. It caused too much of a disruption, the school had said, to have a limo pull up every day for Maisie to get out of. No, her father had no choice but to bring her, although he never hid how much he hated doing so.

So far what Maisie wanted to happen was happening. Her father wasn’t talking to her – didn’t say a single word to her as he roughly grabbed her by her arm and led/dragged her to the car before pushing her into the backseat – and her mother hadn’t been awake to say anything as they left, not that she would have spoken to Maisie anyways. And all went very well for the first ten minutes of the twenty minute drive – totally silent.

But it was after those ten minutes that Maisie became disappointed; her father’s loud angry voice startling Maisie as he suddenly began talking.

“You understand how much trouble you’re in?” he huffed, head turned to look back at her for a moment, “Don’t embarrass yourself trying to get lunch today; your account’s empty until you decide to tell us the truth. It’s helpful, anyways. Hard to miss how **fat** you’re looking these days.”

Maisie, a small ten year old girl, was definitely anything but fat. If anything she was underweight, and yet at her father’s comment she was bowing her head with a small frown. At that age most children didn’t really care about things like that, but Maisie’s parents still used the insult so often that Maisie had learned to care. They would use anything to make her feel bad, even if it wasn’t true.

He didn’t stop there, though, although not adding to his insult about her weight.

“And I expect you won’t be telling your teachers about what _you_ did?” he asked, eyebrow raised. The mark on her face almost wasn’t visible, which was lucky for him, although he was sure that Maisie would have come up with some way to explain the hand mark if it was still there. She’d been doing it for years, after all – lying to teachers about different bumps and bruises that she had – not only out of fear of her parents punishing her for telling, but also out of an underserved loyalty to them.

Before Maisie had to give a response, though, she felt the car turning and heard the crunching of gravel under the tire, knowing that they had reached the lot in front of her school and, unbuckling, she slipped her backpack back on and began to unfold her white cane, moving to be right by the door to get out as soon as possible.

Her para always greeted her as she got out of the car, and, annoying as it was to have a lady follow her around all day to ‘help’ her (which she did sometimes, but most of the time Maisie found that she was helping her with things that she didn’t really need help with), she was glad for her that day, as, not only did she distract Maisie’s dad from being angry for a moment as she told him good morning, but she also immediately noticed the gash on Maisie’s leg and brought her to the nurse, both of whom accepted that she had tripped and cut it (which she had) as an answer without any further questioning.

She had actually began believing that the day might go well. Sure, she didn’t have lunch, but nothing worse than that really happened for a while. In fact, for the first three quarters of the day it went better than normal. While she usually had somebody say something rude to her at lunch at least once a day, that day everybody was more distracted by something else, which Maisie hadn’t bothered to ask what. As long as it kept everybody distracted through lunch she was happy with it. And then there was also the fact that she was sure that she had aced her English test (though she had ‘failed’ the last test, this one, which was about a book that the class had read, was a breeze) and by the time lunch had ended and they had two more classes to attend before school let out she was sure that nothing could turn the rest of the school day bad.

But, of course, she was wrong.

It was when she was in math (which was right after lunch and right before her last period of the day) that the day took a turn for the worse. She hated the class – she never quite got the hang of anything they were learning, and her teacher never bothered to help her much – but as a voice came over the intercom telling Maisie Wells to go to the front office she wished for nothing more than to stay in the classroom and continue learning about how to calculate percents. And yet, despite her wishes, a few seconds later she was being brought to the front office with her para, then into the principal’s office where her para was told to leave.

As the door closed, Maisie was left alone in the office with the principal whom she had never met personally, not that she had ever wanted to. Everybody knew that if the principal wanted you you were in big trouble. So, as she stood there in silence for a moment with the principal staring at her, it became clear that she was trembling.

“Miss Wells,” the principal started after clear her throat. She sounded old – her voice croaking a bit – yet strict, and Maisie could already tell that she was annoyed. “Take a seat, please. There’s a chair about three steps in front of you.”

Maisie quickly did as told, reaching the back of the chair and quickly plopping down into it, then sitting upright rigidly, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she waited for the principal (Mrs. Fox) to continue.

“Now, I’m not saying that you have any part in this,” Mrs. Fox began, although her tone suggested otherwise, “But I do find it rather suspicious that we just had a letter delivered addressed to you.”

And that’s when Maisie somehow felt her heart begin beating even quicker than it had been before, feeling as if she had a lump in her throat. A letter? It couldn’t be. That’s why she had been in trouble at home, but she thought that whatever that was was just a one time thing. Why would she be receiving letters at her school as well?

But maybe it wasn’t that. No, it couldn’t be. This was just a coincidence; it was a different letter. It had to be.

“Maisie, I assume you know how to address letters?” Mrs. Fox continued, scowl evident even in her voice.

“Y- Yes, ma’am,” Maisie stammered with a small nod, remembering it from English class the year before, “In- In the top… _left_ corner you put your name, then under that your address, then under that your city and county.” Maisie never actually had to address her own letter, of course, as she wouldn’t be able to write all of that out in print, but she had still learned it with the rest of her class. “An- And then in the middle you do the same for whoever you’re sending it to.”

“Correct, Miss Wells, so I can’t understand why anybody would address it in the way that it’s addressed on this envelope,” Mrs. Fox tutted, then, with a roll of her eyes at the look of confusion Maisie gave, “I have a feeling that you already know what it is, but if I must read it to you, it is addressed to: ‘Ms. M. Wells, Mr. William’s Math Classroom, Providence Middle. Providence, Cambrideshire.’ Now, Miss Wells, I am not sure what your idea of a joke is, but I can tell you that certainly no one found this as funny as you may have hoped for them to.”

And there it was. It was clearly the same letter as before – it was just as odd as the other one; there was no way it was anything else – and, just like then, she was being blamed for it. Being blamed for something that she clearly hadn’t done! She didn’t know why everybody automatically assumed that it was she who had done it – couldn’t fathom their thinking as to _why_ or _how_ she would have written it – and that it wasn’t somebody else who was doing it and just addressing the letters to her.

But she didn’t dare voice this. She was fine with having her parents be mad with her – she was used to it by then – but she was far too scared of upsetting the principal to say anything that suggested that she was arguing with her. Because while her parents could hurt her and not feed her, the principal could do worse. The principal could _expel_ her. And she couldn’t have that. So instead of saying anything she sat there in silence, waiting for Mrs. Fox to continue, which she did after a short moment.

“Now, Maisie, I would like for you to tell me the truth. How did you write and deliver this letter?” Mrs. Fox had taken Maisie’s silence before as an indication of guilt; almost as if by not talking she was admitting that she had some part in this. “Who did you get to help you? And how did they get this outside my window?”

Outside her window? That was new information. New… confusing information, which somehow made this whole ordeal even more confusing than before. Who could be writing these letters? And why leave one outside a window?

“Maisie,” Mrs. Fox prompted at Maisie’s lack of a response, “Maisie, if you don’t tell me who did this, I’m going to have to give you a detention, and I promise you that is the last thing I want to do right now.”

And that was how Maisie ended up with a detention the week before summer break began.


End file.
